


The Easy Way

by rallamajoop



Series: Summers'son [4]
Category: Cable and Deadpool
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Post-traumatic cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rallamajoop/pseuds/rallamajoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another alternate continuation of <i>Summers'son</i>: In which an enemy attack not only throws all Nathan's convoluted mutant coming-out issues into perspective, but conveniently also renders them completely moot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Easy Way

**Author's Note:**

> One scene from the middle of yet another way things might hypothetically have gone for Nathan and Wade following the scenario set up in [Summers'son](http://archiveofourown.org/works/571980).

A moment after the psi-dampeners blow the whole world comes rushing into Nathan's head, and for once he doesn't fight it. There are five other minds still living in the old warehouse and he hardly waits to note that they're all armed and hostile before each and every one blows clean out the back of its owner's skull.

By the time Wade's body hits the floor it's all over, one second and a million years too late.

Two seconds ago Nathan had had no idea he could _do_ something like that to another human mind but he doesn't care; he'd bring each of them back to life and kill them all again if he could – if it would make any difference to Wade. Even as the soldier in him is running through first-aid essentials, reminding himself of every devastating battlefield wound he's ever seen proven non-fatal, reminding himself that while there's life there's always – _always_ – hope, that's all against the knowing that the same fury that had blown the psi-dampeners into shrapnel had been triggered in the moment where he'd felt Wade's heart stop beating.

Not twenty feet between them and the time it takes to reach Wade's side is an eternity, and the worst of those five dead bodies is that now the only person left to blame is himself. Hadn't he known Scott's idea he could have a 'normal' life here was never more than a happy fiction? How could he have forgotten that they'd come for him – that anyone who got close to him would be a target? No identity could be secret enough; it's his fault Wade was targeted, lured here to draw him out in turn. Nathan can kill five men in the space of a heartbeat but his powers can't knit flesh or fuse bone, can't keep a heart beating when it's been torn open. The sniper's shot was perfect, entry and exit wounds clean through and over before you know you're hit, Wade's body lying on the warehouse floor in a spreading pool of red. He's limp as Nathan falls to his knees beside him and tears his shirt open, it rips straight through at the bullet hole and comes off with hardly a whisper of resistance. How many battles, how many fallen comrades he's seen, and still he doesn't think he's ever seen so much blood before, and for a desperate moment he wonders if there's still a way that his mind could stop the flow, keep Wade's blood circulating, make his lungs work again – things he knows he hasn't a fraction of the practical skill or knowledge to do, that he'd never consider had he any reason to believe there was any other hope.

It's a desperate moment that lasts as long as it takes for him to really look at the broken body he can't think of as Wade and register what it is he's seeing.

Underneath the mess that covers Wade's chest his flesh is knitting before Nathan's eyes, like watching a time-lapse video of months of healing compressed into minutes; already the bleeding has stopped, in half a minute the wound has closed to the dull red of an old scar, in another he's all but lost the spot completely. When he lifts Wade half into his lap, less carefully than he probably ought, there's nothing under his fingers on Wade's back but unbroken skin, and he presses an ear to Wade's chest in time to hear Wade's heart start beating again.

He wonders, _is it me?_ – not a minute ago he hadn't known he could blow psi-dampeners with a thought or a mind out with another, but it doesn't seem right – before the understanding reaches him about what he's seeing: Wade's own mottled skin closing over the wound – Wade's own wonderful, _beautiful_ skin. It's not him, it's _Wade_. Everything he'd seen in Wade the first time they met, that he'd forgotten in knowing him – that someone like Wade couldn't be human and had never been. Askani forgive him, he'd _known_ Wade's skin didn't bruise; he'd had all the pieces all along and still this is what it took for him to put it together. Every third mutant Nathan's ever met has had something about them that heals a little faster, but to come back from a bullet to the heart makes Wade nothing less than a miracle.

Nathan is there to feel it as Wade's mind wakes up again, coasting back on what will shortly be the greatest endorphin rush of his life. There's nothing else like relief – a man can run past the limits of endurance on naught but adrenalin and inertia and the first word of good news will be what brings him to his knees – and it's washing over Nathan in waves that leave him giddy and breathless, and never greater than when Wade finally stirs against his shoulder.

"Nate?" Wade slurs, arms shifting tentatively against the fabric of Nathan's shirt, "That you? Wha' happened?" then words fail him and it's left to Nathan to listen to the ones he doesn't have the strength to voice yet, _Is... issat Nate hugging me? Oh – I get it, know I remembered getting shot... this must be heaven_.

The laugh that escapes Nathan's lips startles him almost as much as Wade's thought did, but he doesn't let go. "No, Wade," he whispers in his friend's ear, "What happened is you _lived_."

Later, this is going to be a mess; he's still got to explain to Wade what this means – what he is, what they both are, how sorry he is they had to find out this way, and then he's going to have to clean up a warehouse with five bodies and a litre of Wade's blood cooling on the floor, but now there's nothing but the euphoria.

By this time tomorrow, everything between him and Wade will have changed irrevocably, and Nathan wouldn't want it any other way. This is it, in its purest, undiluted form - this is victory.


End file.
